• I feel your pain .I’ve lived in houses with mice,roaches and no proper lighting fixtures ,and scary dingy unfinished cold basements to do laundry in . When I looked at a second apartment with my husband I put my foot down on what it needed to have because I’ve lived in bad neighborhoods and didnt want to be pregnant in one .our current place is nothing special.the carpets are ruiened from our neglect..of a year and a half the rent went down and the rental company takes good care of us replacing the cheap dishwashers when they break,bombing when we had bedbugs and roaches from our previous place of 500 sq feet .everything was white and beige .now we have faux wood laminate cabinents,floors and cupboards. its not fancy but it keeps the arizona heat out .

• Thanks for this post! My husband and I made the mistake of moving into a apartment without seeing it and when we pulled up at 3am after driving across California with all our stuff in tow were completely appalled/devastated at the condition of it. It took almost a over a year for me to not feel embarassed when we had ppl over but the experience was very humbling and made our relationship stronger. Friends and family didn’t seem to understand that we simply couldn’t move bc of finances. It’s nice to read that someone else and their marriage survived less then perfect living conditions.

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• Oh my goodness, YES! And we are also renting – for the first time in years – and so I’m having a hard time figuring out what makes sense to spruce up and what doesn’t! There are so many things I didn’t think to look for when I was looking at rentals because I was unknowingly very much in the “it can always be fixed” mindset.

  I now have a running list of the little luxuries I want in my next apartment…

• Thanks so much for sharing with this vulnerable and honest blog post. We also live in a place that has “creative plumbing” due to it being a developing country and a conflict zone. But I was able to paint the walls, get crafty and make beautiful things to furnish this place in a minimalist way. It looks like now you’ve got a start on doing that with your place as well as lots of ideas to move forward.

• A few years ago i had the opportunity to build my own home, everything was new and shiny and I was obsessed with decorating it and buying more and more things for it.
  Sadly my marriage ended the house had to be sold and i had to move in with my parents and then got my first rental apartment for myself.
  It is so old. The hot water system is terrible and i don’t get more than a 3 minute shower. It is nothing like the home i used to live in but i have peace in my heart and a roof over my head.
  It has shown me how all those years I spent wanting ‘stuff’ and obsessing over more, more more, it is just so deeply unimportant and unnecessary. I do dream of getting another rental with a proper hot water service and and maybe a bath, but i realise now how little i really need.
  I love my crappy apartment and I can truly appreciate it now.

• FYI, I work at a library. We just got your Do Less. According to the hold queue it’s going to be quite a success.

  • Wow! Thanks for letting me know. Thrilled people are reading it and blown away that it’s getting stocked in libraries.

    • well, I “cheated” and pre-queued before we even received it. Reading it now with my wife. Eye opener.

• I have to admit, there were tears this morning about our current rental.

  Nine months ago we moved from a house we had just spent 8 years renovating into a rental that was half the size (and a lot shabbier!) We moved because it gave our children better opportunities and because my husband had found a temporary position that would become permanent after three months.

  I made small changes to make our rental livable. I bought a new shower curtain to replace the mouldy one the landlord had left us (they lived here immediately before we moved in), bought new towels (first time in twelve years!) and floor mats. We rented an off site storage facility to give us room to move without having to get rid of half our things for such a short term situation.

  Unfortunately, the goal posts keep moving on when my husband’s job will become permanent and we are still in the rental. The landlord is reluctant to do any repairs because they want to sell the house. Eight days ago our only source of heat stopped working. It was -10.5C (13f) that night. Also, our second toilet has started to leak from the broken bowl (cracks due to age) and the main toilet has started to leak from the waste pipe in to the laundry downstairs. Ew! They finally got a plumber to come out yesterday, but we have to wait until next week for them to decide what work they will have done!

  Needless to say, we are looking for another rental. Unfortunately, it is the worst time of year to be trying to find one as we live near the snowfields and lots of people move down here for the winter.

  Hang in there, Rachel. I think you’ve done well to get some cheap-but-nice curtains to hang up. I homeschool our children, so we really understand how your surroundings can get you down when you spend most of your time in an unsuitable house. It is definitely worth making some cheap, quick, easy fixes to keep your sanity!

  • Oh, Jamie! You hang in there too.
    I’m making a go of it here and we want to at least stay for the six month lease. The suggestions here have been great and I’ve decided to focus on the main floor with our budget and efforts. A couple coats of paint, simple light fixtures and some fun art on the wall should do a lot. I hope.
    Good luck and I hope the job comes through soon. Rachel

• You had to find a place and move pretty quickly, and you did a great job with that. Now that you’re there, can you take your time and look at other places in the vicinity? Just a thought for you.

  • Yes we’re still looking at the rental and sales market to see what comes up. I am going to make do for the next six months so we don’t have to break the lease. It is getting a bit better as we settle in. The kids really like it here and there is some peace from not having to worry about their noise disturbing our neighbors. Thanks for the support 🙂

• We are currently contemplating renting our current home for about the cost of the mortgage and moving into a smaller home for half of of our current monthly mortgage. The savings would allow us to make at least one big trip annually and possibly even several smaller trips with our family of 5. Travel is a huge goal of mine and my husbands and we are tired of putting it off until the kids are older and out of the house. The challenge is that we renovated our kitchen three years ago, it is now perfect, and we painted a beautiful mural on our girls’ room last summer. Hence the renting the house instead of selling it outright. Now, I am trying to wrap my head around living in a smaller, fixer-up. I know our goal/dream is worth it but taking the plunge feels really scary right now.

• Are there any improvements you could make that would make the rental value increase so that the landlord might be willing to pay for the whole thing or at least share the cost?

  I thought of your post when I saw this today: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/yolo-the-renters-edition-183411?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=managed

  p.s.
  I just discovered your blog via another about two months ago and have been reading up all the archives every chance I get 🙂 Is there an e-mail address where I could ask you a specific question in private?

  • Hi Sooah, Thanks for the link to the apartment therapy post. I am going to discuss a few things with the landlord and see if they would be willing to fix them if we shared part of the bill.

    You can email me at the minimalist mom at gmail dot com (all together). Cheers! Rachel

• Rachel, I loved this post; it really struck a cord.
  As expats, I always viewed our place as temporary so have not made an effort to make it feel “homey”. The furniture, decor and never working appliances drive me crazy, and unsettled settled.
  This became very noticeable when we returned from vacation last week and I didn’t get that relaxed feeling when I entered our apartment. I actually preferred the hotel rooms.
  We are on the move again, this time, in agreement with above I need to make the small investment in curtains and a few touches to create a calming home atmosphere 😉
  Thanks for the post.

• With all you have to deal with right now, it seems to me that you are making a valiant attempt to look on the bright side and reconcile your excellent reasons for the move with the reality of actually doing it. I’m so sorry you are having a hard time. Consider that you are also mourning the loss of your first home there, too. Even if your new place had been perfect, there would have been some sadness–it’s normal. Try not to be too hard on yourself. Use the 6 months to experiment with simple fixes–and if you see it’s not working, use it, as someone above suggested, to find a better place. Your idea behind moving was not a bad one, but maybe the execution needs tweaking?

  I say this with the utmost respect because it’s easy to sit outside and make suggestions but hard to actually do them! Perhaps you feel that, as the Minimalist Mom blogger, you Should be above this struggle, or that your feelings are somehow contradicting your blog views. I hope not. What you offer here is a great service to others. No one wants you to be Too perfect. 😉

• I feel your pain! We lived in a small town in Maine, and it was really hard to find a place that let us have our shepherd and two cats. We settled for an old, slanted house in a poor section of town. It was huge, with three bedrooms, and it was patch worked together, with rooms changing from wood paneling to wallpaper in the middle of a wall and nasty pink carpets that smelled funny and felt stick no matter how many times we shampooed them. We thought the low rent would save us money, but in Maine, where the temperatures reach -20F, the drafty house with a hole in the crawl space (which let all the neighborhood cats in our boiler room) was costing us 500 bucks a month just to heat up to 65 degrees! I just kept telling myself, “at least I have a roof over my head, even if it leaks!” I stuck it out for a year, but I can’t say I suffered silently.

  Fortunately, my husband got a job in the Southern, more populated part of Maine and we now have a much smaller, much lovelier apartment with a great view and HEAT INCLUDED! Very happy because I’m having a baby in three months and having a nice place to live is top on my list.

• We have been thinking about downsizing when we move, and we have to think a lot about what kind of balance we can find in which we can have less than we currently do, but still be happy. My husband, especially, likes new things, and has no appreciation for the retro or antique. I like space, light, and openness. The challenge seems daunting at times, and makes me wonder if we wouldn’t be better off trying to improve the efficiency of the space we are currently in. We could finish the basement, easily, and I wonder if it’s possible to build a loft where our high vaulted ceilings currently are. Vaulted ceilings are the stupidest waste of space. I’m paying to heat and cool all of that space!
  Anyway, it’s nice to know others struggle with minimalism this way. I’m begin inning to think I’m not cut out for minimalism so much as efficiencyism. Great post!

• I can empathise! Our last rented apartment/flat was a Victorian-era one that had probably not been renovated inside since the 80s or early 90s when the owners actually lived there. The original floorboards were exposed – which many people see as a charming ‘period’ feature – but the fact that any dirt or crumbs just fell between them and that bugs thrived in them did not make it very practical! Not to mention the silly holes in the floor where people had cut away the wood to access pipework… The same goes for the leaky bathroom window that couldn’t be fixed without significant work to the facade of the building, all the weird little corners and nooks that had come about as the result of years of renovations and that served no purpose other than to gather dust and hair… It was a beautiful flat from far away, but close up, it was a mess that we just weren’t willing to tackle as renters, We made the place livable for 3 years by keeping it as tidy as possible, brightening it up with soft furnishings/wall decor, covering up any anomalies the best we could (like obscuring holes in the wall where big, heavy shelves had once been, or putting furniture over stains on carpets…). We now rent a slightly newer tenement flat that was renovated only last year. It’s tiny but it’s got clean corners, proper flooring and is relatively watertight 🙂

• This is a really really personal one. We moved from our lovely ‘forever’ home in Melbourne, Australia to a rental in Edinburgh, Scotland. The house was a serious downgrade. Similar to yours even down to the chimney – although our issue was seagull poo! We did it for a year – it ticked lots of boxes, was less than we were prepared to pay, and allowed us to travel extensively with 3 young kids. BUT we had a deteriorating relationship with a landlord who was very hesitant to make necessary repairs as they were returning one day to renovate. And then I found a house that ticked all the boxes, even down to a stunning garden and we moved. We doubled our rent and I cannot tell you how much happier we are. Kids are safer, they have a great garden to play in. I have a kitchen I can cook in as we don’t do takeaway. We have more room and cupboards than we could ever fill (don’t intend to!) – and the realisation that for our family, the right space to live in is critically important. Not for vanity or for other people (we happily had loads of visitors at the other house) but for US, and especially for me. So my view is you can do it for a while, and if you are lucky, you can stretch it long enough that you will save some money and have enough time to find a better house. But don’t stop looking, especially if the right rental is tough to find in your area. And pounce when you find the right one – I missed one that I regretted for months.
  PS – good luck with your 3rd baby. We did 3 under 3.5 years and I wouldn’t change it for the world. They are mostly loving and delightful together with flashes of catastrophe!

• We are also not living in what I would consider a great apt. It’s freshly painted and new floors but we all have to walk through every bedroom to get from my bedroom to the kitchen and bathroom. The is no privacy for my growing kids/ teens. They lock doors to change and everyone else has to wait to get to another room. Only has one bathroom for six. We have no livingroom. We have noisy neighbors that slam doors at 2 am. And more things I dislike a LOT. But I try to also remember how lucky that we can walk to every place we need and kids schools are 1- 2-5 blocks away. My job is 10 min drive and should car break I can take the bus. So I make note of the positives as soon as the negatives start haunting me. And of course t
  beautifying that place and making it yours helps too.

• I was actually encouraged by your post. I’ve been downsizing and attempting to live a minimalist lifestyle since I had to move between Brazil and Peru with only 2 suitcases a person. Our whole house downsized into a few suitcases and rubbermaid crates. I lived a year in a cute but TINY house and last month I moved finally moved into a 3 bedroom again. I am trying not to upsize and accumulate but I needed a place we could minister to the singles and multitude of visitors that come our way. Now I am struggling with how to decorate on a dime, make it comfy and inviting to host people. My struggle is to be a “real” person with 3 kids with not a lot of stuff but enough to share with others. I’d appreciate any advice on how to “decorate” without adding “things” to my life and home.

• Our last house was SO run down and icky. It was really hard. It put me in a weird place of feeling like I was being a brat wanting something nicer, but also feeling like it negatively effected my daily peace of mind to walk around my home seeing so many unpleasant things. We were also renting and not wanting to invest a lot. We got the landlord to pay for stick on tiles in the main living spaces, and we painted a couple walls, and bought a new shower head and in turn tolerated the hideous counter tops, bathroom tiles, beat up doors, ugly light fixtures etc.

  Minimalism for me is definitely in part about seeking contentment and peace in what we have and the situation we are in. The saying “wherever you go, there you are” is something I think of often. I want to just be OK anywhere. I want my happiness to not depend on my surroundings and what I have. That said, I think we simply ARE impacted by the state of our homes. Especially those of us living so intentionally. You aren’t asking for fanciness and luxury, you want stationary floor tiles. I don’t think that’s outrageous! 🙂

  Setting a budget and prioritizing your worst issues is a great idea and I think you’ll find the rest easier to look past. How long do you plan to be in this home?

• The water pressure thing is a deal breaker for us, after having lived with terrible water pressure for a year. A hot shower is essential to my happiness.

  I don’t so much care about decor, but you’re right – when things don’t *work* properly, it’s a real source of frustration. Our last place, I hated our tiny kitchenso much that we ate out constantly. Our current place, not a day goes by when I don’t swear loudly and contemplate setting fire to our badly-set-up closet and its doors.

  I’ve found that by making one small space totally awesome, I find it a lot easier to deal with everything that sucks. Right now for us, it’s the living room. It was the bedroom at the old place. Just one…little…spot. I promise, it helps!

• Yep! Just moved across the country to a rental in a company-owned town. Everybody here rents from the company and are assigned a house based on family size. We had no say in where we were put. We got 4 bedrooms, but the kitchen is miniscule. Tradeoffs. Fortunately, we are allowed to paint and hang pictures which helps alot! I can get down that there is not a shade tree to be found in our yard, or be thankful that our rent is dirt cheap, we are right by a (free) golf course, the (free) community pool, gym, fitness center, and library are all within walking distance. I choose gratefulness!

• I completely understand wanting to live in a place where you are comfortable and proud of, but just remember that everything is temporary… 6 months will fly by!
  My family has been living abroad (for my job) for the past 3 years and when our first baby was born my husband quit his job to have more flexibility to help at home (he was traveling all the time) therefore we have decided to “downsize” despite our family growing (we are now expecting our second baby next month). We have lived in 3 homes in the past 3 years and although we’ll most likely stay in our current home until we eventually return to the US I still know it’s temporary and also don’t want to spend too much upgrading it (the whole reason we moved into it was to save money, not spend it!). We decided to prioritize a few pieces of furniture that would help us feel organized/comfortable- a new shelf that we had built for the kitchen that can be removed and taken to another home if needed and a “wardrobe” for the kids room (none of the rooms had closets). Then we evaluated the rest of our stuff- if it didn’t seem to fit anywhere did we really need it?
  We did have an electrician come check the water though- sometimes we had hot water sometimes we didn’t. It really ruined my mornings until we got that fixed and turns out it was on $50 (we should have done it the first time we had the problem!)

• I can totally relate! We bought, though, and shouldn’t have…

  But all the houses in this area are old. Most need significant upgrades. This one seemed to be in decent condition, but it’s project after project after project. Our house is never really in a good state to invite people over. We’ve got a mouse now, because there are too many places where rodents can easily pop in. I’m disgusted looking my daughters’ bathroom because the tub is just really old and really stained. It needs new enamel – it never looks clean. Frugality and living beneath my means do not come easily to me, either. I feel unsettled here, not a home… I hope these six months pass quickly for you and you feel at home wherever you are 🙂

  • I know some people thrive on a project home, one they can dig into and fix up, but we’re not those people. My husband and I are more the move out and hire someone to renovate for us types.
    There have been some good tips here in the comments. I think I’ll put a cap on how much we’ll invest in fixing the place up and see how it goes.
    P.S. I am oh so familiar with mice 🙁

• We lived in a ratty old mobile home for four years why we built our house and began our farmstead. It was horrible when we got it. Mouse poop covered every inch and then some. We tore everything possible out — padding, carpet, cupboard doors and replaced carpet in three rooms with remnants. The rest we painted over the board with bright colors I would never use in my home now but it was what it needed. We put black and white peel & stick tile on top of a horrible kitchen floor. I scrubbed & scrubbed where I could, held my head up and entertained more people in there than I can remember. Big crowds…sometimes families would stop and there children would say to my children, “You live here?” We got very tired of it but at the same time we had a blast in there!

  • Second recommendation for peel and stick tiles. 🙂

    • I am the one who first mentioned it – but I was on my phone so I couldn’t elaborate. Basically, our under floor was soooo awful – it was broken and very very old. I put the peel and stick down – but then after four years, that started to deteriorate, and I was worried about getting our deposit back (it was several thousand dollars deposit). So – I took off the peel and stick after four years, and the bottom original floor was in the identical shape to when i started – and definitely better than it would have been after four plus years of extra wear and tear! to take off the peel and stick tiles, I used a steamer (like the kind you use to remove wallpaper), a scraper- and also goo be gone for the residue. It worked great!

      while we were in that house, i redid the two bathrooms for less than $300/each – really, it transformed them. i also did all new curtains, new light fixtures, and even bought some new appliances. The rent for the area was really good, and we were saving a lot in rent by living there – so I took the time to fix things up, buy little things to make it better – and it got me through!

      then, we bought a fixer upper – which has been a labor of love, but I feel better about spending money on it since we own it.

      ultimately – if you do the calculations for how much you save in rent by living in a slightly dumpy place – you can more than make up for it if you put money into it – which I know goes against common sense when renting.

      BUT – because I invested so much time and money and sweat into fixing up our rental house – we lived their for FIVE years to reap the benefits of my work – when we probably would have moved much sooner had we just left it the way we found it when we moved in.

      We did what we had to do because at the time (pre-homeschooling) – the school district was THAT important to us (Los angeles is sort of uneven when it comes to schools)-

      I just looked at it as investing in that time in my life – so – I made the decision it was better to do what I could…

      now for unsafe things- like we had bad electrical, a mold issue, water damage, a VERY leaky roof, and those types of things – I did call the landlord. It was a lot of bandaids on bullet wounds and ultimately that was the deciding factor in what made us move because with three small kids, I felt the house was literally unsafe for the kids…

• I think you make a very valid point about wanting to live somewhere that makes you feel good and proud. I’m wondering though, from personal experience, if you can seperate out what bothers you personally to live with and what embarrasses you for other people to see.

  If it’s just a short term rental, fix the things that bug you and decrease your contentment and maybe don’t have a lot of people over for that short time.

  • Good points, Sarah. I’m actually not that concerned about what friends think about our home. I’m fairly laid back and have even told a few friends our new home is rougher than we thought. Because we socialize with a lot of expats they all sympathize with and understand that very few of us are living in homes we really like.
    It’s more the day to day for me. The loose linoleum in the kitchen as I cook and do dishes. The patchwork repairs to walls in the bathroom.
    I’m feeling better since taking down the curtains (simple beige ones picked up for next to nothing!) and getting a few throw pillows we like. Need to keep my eyes peeled for some lamp shades.

• When I divorced my first husband, I bought a turn of the century run down cottage. It was a disaster with holes in the walls and makeshift repairs all through it. The basement was dirt and cobwebs. I remember the first snowfall after moving in that January. I went upstairs to find the source of cold air and found snow in the upstairs bedroom closet. I can laugh now, but I was so broke then that I just put a heavy blanket and tarp over the hallway entrance and called it good enough. My patents found out and eventually came to my rescue with some batted insulation and spray foam insulation to fill in the cracks.

  When my current husband moved in, we spent a lot of time scouring the free section of the papers and websites for stuff we could use to fix up the mess. Free cycle was my best friend in those days. I was also blessed with family members who were willing to help me gather odds and ends to use too. It was an interesting adventure. Looking back I can say it taught me a lot.

  P.S. I got a good laugh at your cardboard wake up call. I had the same kind of situation in the room I claimed to make into a bedroom. It was really hard going to sleep wondering what was behind that patch.

• is your water hard? try soaking your shower head in vinegar. I fill a baggie and then tape it to the shower head so it is submerged. it’s amazing the improvement in flow after a good vinegar soak!

• Simple and minimalist does not have to be ugly and cheap.

  But if you can’t love the space or change it to something you feel happy in perhaps you should use your 6 months to find a new place to live.

  Mental health is just as important as your physical health. If the place was filled with mould and asbestos you would be out the door in seconds. If it is a dump and makes you feel sad perhaps you should consider something else.

  As a SAHM my house is my home, my office and my social HQ. It isn’t perfect and their is always a list of things that need attention, but we are happy and so are our children. Home is where we laugh and play and relax…. not worry about electrical wiring and have our retinas burned out by awful paint.

  It will be a tough road being pregnant and all, but if being there doesn’t make you happy and you can’t / don’t want to change it…. have strength now and get out!

• We were/are in a similar situation. We moved from the house we owned and completely renovated to a duplex that backed to a train that goes by and blares its horn at least every hour around the clock. It has been a hard adjustment to sharing walls and getting acclimated to the damn train. We did it for a year and a half. We’re finally buying a house in a better neighborhood with better schools and a bigger square footage. We thought about buying in the neighborhood we currently live in as it would make our mortgage $300ish less per month, but when it came down to where we want to live for the next 20 years, we decided to spend more as we spend SO much time at home. Plus, when we envisioned what we wanted in a house, like the ability to have lots of kids over and host many family holidays, the smaller, cheaper place just didn’t crack up. My house is my serenity, so for us, it was worth it to pay more to achieve that. The happiness isn’t in the physical things, but in the feeling and emotion of feeling like you’re home.

• I AGREE WITH OTHER COMMENTORS… INVEST A LITTLE, REAP A LOT. YOU’LL NEVER REGRET SPLURGING ON A FEW BASICS THAT DRAMATICALLY INCREASE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF YOUR SPACE.

  BEING A SAHM, I PRIORITIZE CERTAIN THINGS ABOUT MY HOME BECAUSE THIS IS MY FULL-TIME JOB. AND COMMAND CENTRAL IS OUR KITCHEN. SO I INVEST IN THAT AREA ON OCCASION BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE I GET MUCH OF MY WORK DONE THROUGHOUT THE DAY. MY HUSBAND SPLURGES ON A SET OF NICE EARBUDS TO LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE HE’S WORKING IN A NOISY OFFICE…I SPLURGE ON A BIGGER COUNTERTOP FOR OUR KITCHEN ISLAND. NEITHER ARE NECESSITIES, BUT MAN DO THEY MAKE LIFE MORE ENJOYABLE CONSIDERING ALL THE HOURS LOGGED IN BOTH PLACES!

  BEST OF LUCK MAKING IT HOME. IT WILL GET THERE!

  • AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS ALL IN CAPS- SORRY FOR THE “SHOUTING”! CAN’T GET MY IPAD TO NOT DO THAT, FOR SOME REASON. (AND I ALWAYS READ ALL CAPS LIKE SOMEONE IS YELLING AT ME).

  • I think the if you double click the shift key on the iPad/iPod it turns all caps on 🙂

    This really is my office. I think that’s why it’s bothering me much more than my husband. Before we moved in I thought he would be the “soft” one and not be able to hack the rough edges of the new place. Nope. It’s me.

• Sort for the typos…I’m on my phone! I meant peel and stick tile…I got mine on Amazon…black and white checkers. I laid them down myself while pregnant…super easy!

• Yes! We have lived in horrible rentals…I live in los Angeles, so it’s all about location. Our last rental we were in for five years…it was terrible, dangerous, and tremendously expensive. We lived in the neighborhood because of the fabulous school district…and we just moved in March to a less expensive neighborhood (nicer house) and now we homeschool. I put a lot of work and some money into the rental to make it liveable…I had to. The money we saved in rent paid for the upgrades. It was hard and I don’t know I would do it again…I have three small children. My house now is not fancy or big but it is safer. The old rental house felt like a disaster waiting to happen. It was complicated because our landlords were checked out, and we could not afford a nicer hone in that neighborhood. Ultimately, we decided the primo neighborhood was not worth it…and we truly are happier now. My advice is to get some cute curtains, change the kitchen floor (I did Perl and stick tile in the old house and it lasted four years…when I left, I removed the peel and stick and the floor underneath was pristine). Some paint and a few new light fixtures can go a long way, especially with what you are saving on rent. Take the opportunity for those little touches, and it will increase your happiness. Minimalism doesn’t mean ugly!

• I’d investigate the water pressure thing. Oftentimes it’s possible to adjust it just by turning some wheel somewhere… Aside from that, different curtains should be an easy fix.(or go without curtains, if that’s okay for you) About the loose tiles you can contact your landlord.

  I agree with Hanna that one adjusts to such things quite fast and although you won’t live there forever, 10-20$ for a new shower head or shower curtain or whatever bothers you can still be a good investment. It’s not worth to be bothered by such a small thing for months if it can be fixed with little effort. Such improvements can also be made together with the landlord (he/she pays, you install the new thing).

• I hope, and I truly think, that you will start to like your home. Directly after a move you tend to see all the problems in your home, but as soon as you put your own touch on it, it will start feeling better. Try to make a list of the thing that bothers you the most, and then organize them into groups of thing that you can change and those you can’t. The thing you actually can do something about you can organize according to cost/effort to fix them, or just start with the one that annoys you most. Good luck!

  • Thanks, Hanna. Curtains down and replaced with an inexpensive find. Breathing a bit easier.

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